King Agrippa's conscience aroused

In Agrippa there was, I believe, more curiosity than
conscience, though there may have been some desire to profit by the
occasion to know what the doctrine was which had so stirred up
people's minds, a disposition to inquire which was more than
curiosity. In general his words are taken as if he was not far from
being convinced that Christianity was true: perhaps he would have
been so if his passions had not stood in the way. But it may be
questioned whether this is the force of the Greek, as generally
supposed, and not, rather, 'In a little you are going to make a
Christian of me,' covering his uneasiness at the appeal to his
professed Judaism before Festus, by an affected and slighting
remark. And such I believe to be the case. The notion of an "almost
christian" is quite a mistake, though a man's mind may be under
influences which ought to lead him to it, and yet reject it. He
would have been glad for Paul to be set free. He expressed his
conviction that it might have been done if he had not appealed to
Caesar. He gives his opinion to Festus as a wise and reasonable man;
but his words were in reality dictated by his conscience -- words
that he could venture to utter when Festus and all the rest were
agreed that Paul had done nothing worthy of death or of bonds. God
would have the innocence of his beloved servant proved in the face
of the world. His discourse tends to this. He goes farther, but his
object is to give account of his conduct. His miraculous conversion
is related in order to justify his subsequent career; but it is so
related as to act upon the conscience of Agrippa, who was acquainted
with Jewish things, and evidently desired to hear something of
Christianity, which he suspected to be the truth. Accordingly he
lays hold with eagerness of the opportunity that presents itself to
hear the apostle explain it. But he remains much where he was. His
condition of soul opens however the mouth of Paul, and he addresses
himself directly and particularly to the king; who moreover,
evidently engrossed by the subject, had called on him to speak. To
Festus it was all a rhapsody.

A missionary from God before the Gentiles

The dignity of Paul's manner before all these governors is
perfect. He addresses himself to the conscience with a
forgetfulness of self that showed a man in whom communion with God,
and the sense of his relationship with God, carried the mind above
all effect of circumstances. He was acting for God; and, with a
perfect deference for the position of those he addressed, we see
that which was morally altogether superior to them. The more
humiliating his circumstances, the more beauty there is in this
superiority. Before the Gentiles he is a missionary from God. He is
again (blessed be God!) in his right place. All that he said to the
Jews was right and deserved; but why was he, who had been delivered
from the people, subjected to their total want of conscience, and
their blind passions which gave no place for testimony?
Nevertheless, as we have seen, it was to be so in order that the
Jews might in every way fill up the measure of their iniquity, and
indeed that the blessed apostle might follow the steps of his
Master.

Paul's address to Agrippa; his personal history; the conduct
of the Jews put in the clearest light

Paul's address to king Agrippa furnishes us with the most
complete picture of the entire position of the apostle, as he
himself looked at it when his long service and the light of the Holy
Ghost illuminated his backward glance. He does not speak of the
assembly -- that was a doctrine for instruction, and not a part of
his history. But everything that related to his personal history, in
connection with his ministry, he gives in detail. He had been a
strict Pharisee; and here he connects the doctrine of Christ with
the hopes of the Jews. He was in bonds "for the hope of the promise
made unto the fathers." No doubt resurrection entered into it. Why
should the king think resurrection impossible, that God was not able
to raise the dead? This brings him to another point. He had verily
thought with himself that he ought to do many things against Jesus
of Nazareth, and had carried them out with all the energy of his
character, and with the bigotry of a devout Jew. His present
condition, as a witness among the Gentiles, depended on the change
wrought in him by the revelation of the Lord when he was engaged in
seeking to destroy His name. Near Damascus a light brighter than the
sun struck them all to the earth, and he alone heard the voice of
the Righteous One, so that he knew from His own mouth that it was
Jesus, and that He looked upon those who believed in Him as
Himself. He could not resist such a testimony. But as this was the
great grievance to the Jews, he shows that his own position was
formally marked out by the Lord Himself. He was called to give
ocular evidence of the glory which he had seen; that is, of Jesus in
that glory; and of other things also, for the manifestation of which
Jesus would again appear to him. A glorious Christ known
(personally) only in heaven was the subject of the testimony
committed to him. For this purpose He had set Paul apart from the
Jews as much as from the Gentiles, his mission belonging immediately
to heaven, having its origin there; and he was sent formally by the
Lord of glory to the Gentiles, to change their position with respect
to God through faith in this glorious Jesus, opening their eyes,
bringing them out of darkness into light, from the power of Satan to
God, and giving them an inheritance among the sanctified. This was a
definite work. The apostle was not disobedient to the heavenly
vision, and he had taught the Gentiles to turn to God, and to act as
those who had done so. For this cause the Jews sought to kill
him. Nothing more simple, more truthful, than this history. It put
the case of Paul and the conduct of the Jews in the clearest
light. When called to order by Festus, who naturally thought it
nothing more than irrational enthusiasm, he appeals with perfect
dignity and quick discernment to Agrippa's knowledge of the facts
upon which all this was based: for the thing had not been done in a
corner.

The poor prisoner, rich in God, and the king

Agrippa was not far from being convinced; but his heart was
unchanged. The wish that Paul expresses brings the matter back to its
moral reality. The meeting is dissolved. The king resumes his kingly
place in courtesy and condescension, and the disciple that of a
prisoner; but, whatever might be the apostle's position, we see in him
a heart thoroughly happy and filled with the Spirit and love of
God. Two years of prison had brought him no depression of heart or
faith, but had only set him free from his harassing connection with
the Jews, to give him moments spent with God. Agrippa, surprised and
carried away by Paul's clear and straightforward narrative,* relieves
himself from the pressure of Paul's personal address by saying, 'In a
little you are going to make a Christian of me.' Charity might have
said, "Would to God that thou wert!" But there is a spring in the
heart of Paul that does not stop there. "Would to God," says he, "that
not only thou, but all those that hear me, were ... altogether such as
I am, except these bonds!" What happiness and what love (and in God
these two things go together) are expressed in these words! A poor
prisoner, aged and rejected, at the end of his career he is rich in
God. Blessed years that he had spent in prison! He could give himself
as a model of happiness; for it filled his heart. There are conditions
of soul which unmistakably declare themselves. And why should he not
be happy? His fatigues ended, his work in a certain sense finished, he
possessed Christ and in Him all things. The glorious Jesus, who had
brought him into the pains and labour of the testimony, was now his
possession and his crown. Such is ever the case. The cross in service
-- by virtue of what Christ is -- is the enjoyment of all that He is,
when the service is ended; and in some sort is the measure of that
enjoyment. This was the case with Christ Himself, in all its fulness;
it is ours, in our measure, according to the sovereign grace of
God. Only Paul's expression supposes the Holy Ghost acting fully in
the heart in order that it may be free to enjoy, and that the Spirit
is not grieved.

{*It is hardly to be read "almost." Relieving
himself, Agrippa says, "You'll soon be making a Christian of me,"
covering his feelings, as I have said, by a slighting speech. But I
have no doubt his mind was greatly wrought upon.}

The glorious object of Paul's heart and faith

A glorious Jesus -- a Jesus who loved him, a Jesus who put the
seal of His approbation and love upon his service, a Jesus who would
take him to Himself in glory, and with whom he was one (and that known
according to the abundant power of the Holy Ghost, according to divine
righteousness), a Jesus who revealed the Father, and through whom he
had the place of adoption -- was the infinite source of joy to Paul,
the glorious object of his heart and of his faith; and, being known in
love, filled his heart with that love overflowing towards all
men. What could he wish them better than to be as he was except his
bonds? How, filled with this love, could he not wish it, or not be
full of this large affection? Jesus was its measure.

The servant eclipsed before Christ

His innocence fully established and acknowledged by his judges,
the purposes of God must still be accomplished. His appeal to Caesar
must carry him to Rome, that he may bear testimony there also. In his
position here he again resembles Jesus. But at the same time, if we
compare them, the servant, blessed as he is, grows dim, and is
eclipsed before Christ, so that we could no longer think of him.
Jesus offered Himself up in grace; He appealed to God only; He
answered but to bear testimony to the truth -- that truth was the
glory of His Person, His own rights, humbled as He was. His Person
shines out through all the dark clouds of human violence, which could
have had no power over Him had it not been the moment for thus
fulfilling the will of God. For that purpose He yields to power given
them from above. Paul appeals to Caesar. He is a Roman -- a human
dignity conferred by man, and available before men; he uses it for
himself, God thus accomplishing His purposes. The one is blessed, and
his services; the other is perfect, the perfect subject of the
testimony itself.

The prisoner filled with liberty and joy; the Lord's gracious
encouragement

Nevertheless, if there is no longer the free service of the Holy
Ghost for Paul, and if he is a prisoner in the hands of the Romans,
his soul at least is filled with the Spirit. Between him and God all
is liberty and joy. All this shall turn to his salvation, that is, to
his definitive victory, in his contest with Satan. How blessed!
Through the communications of the Spirit of Jesus Christ the word of
God shall not be bound. Others shall gain strength and liberty in view
of his bonds, even although, in the low state of the church, some take
advantage of them. But Christ will be preached and magnified, and with
that Paul is content. Oh how true this is, and the perfect joy of the
heart, come what may! We are the subjects of grace (God be praised!),
as well as instruments of grace in service. Christ alone is its
object, and God secures His glory -- nothing more is needed: this
itself is our portion and our perfect joy. It will be remarked in this
interesting history, that at the moment when Paul might have been the
most troubled, when his course was perhaps the least evidently
according to the power of the Spirit, when he brought disorder into
the council by using arguments which afterwards he hesitates himself
entirely to justify -- it is then that the Lord, full of grace,
appears to him to encourage and strengthen him. The Lord, who formerly
had told him at Jerusalem to go away because they would not receive
his testimony, who had sent him warnings not to go thither, but who
accomplished His own purposes of grace in the infirmity and through
the human affections of His servant, by their means even, exercising
at the same time His wholesome discipline in His divine wisdom by
these same means -- Jesus appears to him to tell him that, as he had
testified of Him at Jerusalem, so should he bear witness at Rome
also. This is the way that the Lord interprets in grace the whole
history, at the moment when His servant might have felt all that was
painful in his position, perhaps have been overwhelmed by it,
remembering that the Spirit had forbidden him to go up; for, when in
trial, a doubt is torment. The faithful and gracious Saviour
intervenes therefore to encourage Paul, and to put His own
interpretation on the position of His poor servant, and to mark the
character of His love for him. If it was necessary to exercise
discipline for his good on account of his condition and to perfect
him, Jesus was with him in the discipline. Nothing more touching than
the tenderness, the opportuneness, of this grace. Moreover, as we have
said, it all accomplished the purposes of God with regard to the Jews,
to the Gentiles, to the world. For God can unite in one dispensation
the most various ends.